Case Study

A year four student, whose spelling instruction in the past has been based on word lists determined by the teacher at another school has been placed in the Corrective Reading Decoding B1 program.  

This student does not enjoy writing assignments and writes short narratives. They ask for help to spell words frequently and have many misspellings in their writing. They are hesitant to write answers in workbooks and frequently ask for help with spelling.

Given what is known about this student, the teacher starts by giving them placement test A. 

The student made three errors on placement test A, so the teacher needs to administer placement test B.

The teacher then checks if they need to give placement test C to the student.

They do not give placement test C due to the six errors the student made which places them in level B. 

The teacher places the student in a group with other students beginning Spelling Mastery Level B. 

This student has now been placed homogeneously – meaning they are placed at their correct level for learning.

Grouping students homogeneously by program level enables teachers to set the students up for success.